Kicked a Stone – Octember threeteenth, 2002

spwilcen

All walks in life are not scenic rural paths or bustling city avenues.

Rather enjoy megastore parking lots.  It you’re alert and any kind of observant, you’ll chance across an abandoned penny here, another there. Now and again a nickel or a dime. It’s rare but you might be the first to happen by a dollar someone lost lying flat, finally worn-out after being pushed around by the wind. 

If someone loses a dollar or a fiver, they don’t know about it.  If someone loses a coin, they might know about it but consider it not worth the effort to chase it to where is comes to rest after rolling away.  When I see someone drop change, I’ll give them a heads-up.  Most usually they’ll thank me.  Maybe without giving me that “You crazy bastard, ain’t you got nothin better ta do?” look.  Folks seem not to care about small stuff, certainly, and lots of times not-so-small stuff, either.

Which is okay, I reckon.

Seeing a penny, clearly abandoned, most are inclined to ignore it.  Lo and behold, then you see another.  Ignore that.  Then you’ll see another. Had you stopped to pick each up, you have three cents.   Unless one of the pennies was a dime, the third a nickel. Then you might have anywhere from three to thirty cents. Or more.

Still ain’t much. But it’s something. Not income. Not taxable. Not yet.  Republicans are working on that. Democrats, I hear, are thinking to make lost change illegal. Not sure then, how or who will be criminal in that case, but then I’m not blessed with superior Democrat logic.

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Kind of like life. The parking lot.  Not that you need to walk through life looking down at the ground for pennies.  Just that you need to be aware, alert to things out of the ordinary, opportunities.  Even tiny opportunities requiring you to stoop to “pick up” two, three, or more times to get anything amounting to something.